β-Amino alcohols are an important class of compounds to the synthetic and pharmaceutical communities. For example, Oxycontin®, Coreg®, and Toprol-XL® display this functional group pattern, and other pharmaceuticals like Zyvox® and Skelaxin® feature oxazolidones that can be formed through β-amino alcohol precursors. A variety of methods to construct β-amino alcohols have been studied, and one of the more frequently used approaches involves ring opening of epoxides with amine nucleophiles. Significant advances have been made in the promotion of epoxide aminolysis by addition of, for example, lanthanide triflates, Lewis acids, solid acid supports, or solvents such as water. However, while these methods are effective for relatively simple substrates, more complex cases, such as those commonly found in the pharmaceutical industry, are often incompatible with the reagents or conditions necessary for these transformations. Thus, alternative and more general methods of amino alcohol synthesis via epoxide-opening reactions is currently a significant need.
Microwave irradiation is often used to rapidly achieve high reaction temperatures and thus faster reaction rates. For example, studies have described microwave-assisted aminolysis of epoxides in an efficient and straightforward manner. Microwave irradiation may allow for improved reaction profiles, however, limitations in microwave penetration depth have hampered scale-up to the industrial realm and require the use of microwave generators.